and on this casket's back sits a little lonely ghost [open to multiple]

[deadeyedchild]

He can feel Tim leaving him, waking up, and he tries to follow. He doesn't know how. This is all new territory, following someone from one plane of existence to another. He tries to visualize himself holding onto Tim's hand. It's embarrassing but it works.

He thinks it works.

He feels different.

The world feels familiar - not the empty void he'd been inhabiting, but the world, solid and real, tangible. He's here. He's back.

He still feels like he's looking at it through glass, though. He looks down at his hands, which are - sort of there, at least, he knows they're there. He can almost see them. Except not quite.

"Oh come on," he mutters, and no sound comes out. He knows he's spoken but he can't quite hear it. He tries to lay a hand on his own arm and he feels a buzz of static as his fingers pass through himself. Oh, god.

He's a fucking ghost.

This is not quite what he had in mind. He knows it's not what Tim had in mind.

It's better than nothing.

He takes a moment to try and figure out where he is. He finds that he can move, not exactly by walking, but sort of drifting along the ground. He accidentally passes through someone, who shivers violently and looks thoroughly spooked for a few seconds. He is unable to get anyone's attention, or interact with anything.

He has to get to Tim somehow, but he can't really take a train, can he? He's not even sure what part of the city he's in.

So he rambles. After a while he finds it's easier to just move through walls than to try to go about things the normal way. Shortly after that revelation he starts picking up the very bizarre skill of moving up through a building, in and out of offices and apartments.

Travel is easy, but communication is nearly impossible.

He searches, having nothing else he can do, for someone he knows.


[[Jay is wandering all over kingdom come today so if you want your character to have a weird ghost encounter, pick a location and we'll see what happens. It's going to be super hard to notice him if you don't have any kind of telepathic/other helpful powers, but that's okay, we can do short shenanigan threads if you're into that. A quick little ghost encounter! Hey, maybe Jay can overhear some awkward dialogue or embarrassing secrets. Maybe he'll accidentally figure out how to knock something off a counter and then go nuts trying to do it again. The sky is the limit. Have fun!]]

UPDATE: as often happens with this kind of thing we have Jay on a pretty tight schedule now. The Balladeer meets him around lunchtime, and then the line of Rush/Iman - Daniel - Greta gets set into motion sometime after. Greta will be taking Jay back to his building in the late afternoon. If you want to meet him when he's out and about it'll now have to be prior to lunch or snuck in between lunch and his adventure through the former ROMAC apartments. There is still plenty of room in there for nonsense, it just won't be able to lead to Jay actually getting home. SHENANIGANS!

Comments

[andhiswife]

There's a great deal of comfort to be had from the things that don't change. Greta hadn't really appreciated that before - before the Curse, or the Giant, or the Rift, or, most recently, the Devil. She appreciates it now, though, which is why she's baking as if she has a shop to run, despite the lack of any such thing.

It doesn't matter. She can keep some of the results for herself, see that her friends get a share, and put the rest in the lobby for anyone who wants or needs it. Things have been weird since the factions fell, and while nobody's starving or getting kicked out onto the street, that doesn't mean a little free food might not make things easier for someone whose life could use a little easing.

If nothing else, it's a nice treat.

At present, she has her sleeves rolled up past her elbows as she kneads a batch of dough, the radio playing quietly in the background. The afternoon sun is slanting into her apartment, emphasizing the puffs of flour she keeps sending into the air. The downside to such an unusual lot of baking is that it's making an unusual lot of mess, but the prospect of an unusual lot of cleaning doesn't bother her. She'll get to it.

For now, there's kneading.

[deadeyedchild]

Successfully shooed off by the cat, Jay irritably departs the scientists-and-dog apartment and spends some time sullenly exploring the rest of the building. Most people either aren't in or aren't as keen to notice him as the scientists were. He spends some time trying to get someone to notice that their cat was watching his every move, but it all turned out to be absolutely futile.

So far the guitar man was the only person he actually recognized, and the only person who was about to communicate with him at all. The scientists probably would have been able to help too, if the cat had let them.

It's going to be so much work getting out of this stupid building. For whatever reason going up is way easier than going down. If he can get back down to street level, he can go to the park, heads off across it - that should be where his building is. He thinks. If he could just find Tim...

Tim wouldn't know what to do either.

He sighs, ghostlike and silent, and floats through a wall into another apartment.

This one is kind of nice. Homey. It smells good, he thinks - smells are pretty dulled, but it's strong enough for him to pick up on it, and it's comforting. He moves in toward the little kitchen, not even noticing as he displaces a bunch of flour particles, sending them swirling gently around his shape.

It's Greta. Oh thank goodness, finally a familiar face, finally someone who knows what happened to him. He reaches it out, though he hesitates before touching her. He doesn't want to alarm her, and also, he doesn't want the cat to come here, too.

[andhiswife]

She doesn't notice the peculiar eddies in the airborne flour right away, but after a moment she lifts her head without quite knowing why she felt the need to do so. There's nothing to see. The apartment is plainly empty aside from herself. More to the point, it's warded, so there really is no need to be jumpy. The corners of her mouth tick down into a self-recriminating frown, and she flips the dough over, giving the gesture a bit more emphasis than is strictly necessary. A fresh puff of flour wafts into the air, and--

--WHAT.

The cloud of white dust breaks in midair like a wave against the shore, but the shape revealed by the negative space is human, and it's reaching for her, and she stumbles back into the refrigerator with a cry of alarm.

[deadeyedchild]

Wh- holy shit, can she see him? He pulls back, just as startled, and it's only then that he notices the flour swirling around him. Wait, what? He reaches out for it experimentally and it falls through his hand and his fingers. He can't catch it - it doesn't stick to him. All he does is displace it.

Okay so how the fuck is he supposed to make her keep knocking flour clouds up?

He raises a hand and tries to wave gently, not sure what the hell else to do. He'd like to hope the motion is at all understandable, but as the flour settles it becomes harder to make a clear shape.

[andhiswife]

The shape jerks back, as if surprised at being caught out. She half-expects it to rally and rush toward her, finish whatever grim business it's come here to do. Why is this happening to her? What is it? She can't tear her eyes away from it, even as the settling flour makes its shape harder to pick out. One hand gropes blindly at the counter behind her for a moment before seizing the handle of a bread knife, and she points it at the fading shape defensively.

"Um." It's fading further without the flour dust to define it, and she shifts nervously. Seeing it is frightening, not seeing it is worse. God, what if it starts moving around? It could end up anywhere, and she'd have no idea. "Ummmm," she says again, more frantic and keening this time, before making a mad dart towards the island and swatting over the bag of flour. Then she skips back again, knife clutched in both hands.

It's a solid blow, and the bag both coughs out a large puff of white dust and sends some of what already covered the counter floating back into the air. The shape is where she left it, still standing beside the island, and it's... it's just standing there, arms raised in an unmistakably pacifying gesture. As if she's scared it.

Greta's brow furrows, and the knife dips for a moment. "I--" Well, she's not going to apologize. Nor is she relinquishing the upper hand, if she actually has it. She lifts the knife again, eyes narrowing. "What do you want?"

[deadeyedchild]

Oh jeez. That's a knife. Okay. He backs up instinctively, holding his hands out in an automatic defensive gesture even though he's reasonably certain she can't hurt him, at least not with that.

She's panicking. He supposes he can't blame her. Now he just feels shitty for scaring her. She probably can't piece this together like the others - why would she? Guitar man clearly has some kind of ability that allows him to feel Jay's presence, and the other two were... all sciencey and stuff. And they had a dog.

When she knocks a huge burst of flour toward him he flinches back, stupidly, even though that's... a really good idea. She found a way to see him, that's more than anyone else did. Maybe he shouldn't discount her so quickly.

But he still can't communicate. He waves again, quick and short, so she can see it before the flour dissipates, and then he lowers himself down into a kneel, to look as nonthreatening as possible.

[andhiswife]

The wave is a surprise, though it's nothing compared to the kneeling, as if it's mistaken her for a Queen or something. That thought is so appalling that she finds herself setting down the knife with mortified alacrity and wringing her hands together. She doesn't want this thing bothering with her at all, let alone deferring to her like an insubstantial footman. She is no one. What could it possibly want from her, or do for her?

"Don't... don't move," she orders, if it's taking orders. Giving them feels absurd, and she tacks on a quavery, "Please. I... I just want to look at you."

It doesn't move. That's... promising?

Greta edges forward, scooping up a palmful of flour as she goes. The figure remains still and passive as she stretches out her hand and sprinkles more flour over it, like a light snowfall. The dust cascades down, not bouncing off the figure, but veering far enough off its course for her to make out its hair and the slouch of its shoulders. Greta frowns, unsettled by the sight, and it takes her several moments to realize there's something familiar about its features, about the apologetic way it's holding itself.

It can't be.

Greta drops into a crouch before it, lifting her hand with its remaining coating of flour and gently blowing it towards the figure's face. And there he is, eyes squinched shut under the light onslaught, but unmistakable.

She gasps, inhales flour dust, and descends into a coughing fit. By the time she's recovered enough for speech, the flour has settled, but she looks toward where he was and croaks, "Jay?!"

[deadeyedchild]

Well this is weird as fuck but it's something. He can't quite feel the flour as it flutters around him, but he sees it, some of it passing through him and some of it displaced around his general shape. He shuts his eyes quickly and automatically when she blows it in his face and then starts coughing.

He blinks at her and then she says his name.

Oh thank god. He reaches out slowly and touches her shoulder. No one seems to like that but at least it might seem like an acknowledgment.

[andhiswife]

"Oh--" she flinches away from that icy touch unthinkingly, then stills as she pieces things together. "Oh, is that...?" She lifts a hand to her shoulder to rub a little warmth back into it, then cautiously reaches forward until her fingertips sink into a patch of frigid air. "That's you," she breathes, astonished, before pulling her hand back.

Well, then. This is a different sort of terrible, but she supposes it still counts as progress. He's out of the dreaming, even if he's still little more than a ghost.

He must not be able to speak, or he would have by now. Greta clears her throat and clambers to her feet. "Right," she says to the empty air, going for a more bracing tone of voice. "You've made it out of the dreams, so that's something. Can you, er..." she looks around, at a loss for ways he might actually communicate with her. "Can you move anything?" She could get a pen if he's capable of writing. As an afterthought, she sends out another puff of flour - if nothing else, he can gesture at her.

[deadeyedchild]

Still fuckin weird when people stick their hands right through him, though he has to concede it's only fair when that's what he does to them. The flour trick also should be getting annoying but it's far too useful for that. He's grateful she's willing to make her apartment this much of a mess for him.

He gives an exaggerated shake of the head and looks glumly at the flour pooled around him on the floor. How can he tell her where he needs to go? This isn't the right building, but it might be the former ROMAC one, with so many rifties in it - which means he's on the wrong side of the damn island.

[andhiswife]

Greta hums in response to the head shake. The poor lad. Out of the dreaming he may be, but she can't help thinking he's in even worse shape now than he was before. He's only in the real world by the barest margin: he can't talk to anyone, he's completely invisible without the flour trick, and the closest he can get to touching anyone is making them feel uncomfortably chilled.

He can move the flour, though. Or the flour can move around him.

"What about the flour?" she asks, nodding at the dusting covering the floor. It's noticeably thinner where Jay is kneeling, giving her an idea of where he is even without it being airborne. "Could you--" her phone buzzes, and she lifts her head with a little tsk of annoyance. "Could you move that?" She considers ignoring her phone for the moment, then considers the week she's had and decides she'd better not. "Hang on," she says with an apologetic glance in Jay's general direction before heading to the table and checking her texts.

Her eyebrows shoot up, and she hastily taps out a response, feeling a little foolish for not thinking to text Bee immediately. "It's Bee," she explains as she awaits a response. "She says you... you're trying to get to the old Rebel building. It's across the Park from here, but it's not that far."

The flour has all settled. She crosses back to the island and swipes some flour off the counter top and into the air. "Do you need help?" she asks, watching for his reaction.

[deadeyedchild]

Well he's been trying, hasn't he? Of course there's no way for her to know that. He sighs when she goes to her phone, looking back at the flour and giving it an annoyed, cursory poke.

W- holy shit it worked.

He drew a line.

For a moment he's so excited he can't even do it again. And then he calms down and he still can't do it. And then he gets frustrated and he still can't do it.

His fingers move repeatedly through the floor, doing nothing but gently displacing just insignificant particles into the air, only visible because of the sun coming through the windows. It's nothing. But the line is there, drawn by him. Why can't he do it again?

He looks up when she starts talking again, feeling a rush of surprise and relief when she mentions this Bee person, whoever she is, thank god for her, holy shit. What, did she just tell everyone to keep a lookout or something? Or... well, so far it's only been the people who saw him in the dreaming, so maybe that's it somehow. Regardless, between her and Greta it looks like he might actually get somewhere.

He nods eagerly when she asks her question, and then looks back down quickly to point out his - oh. Well. Now there's new flour that's obscured it completely. So much for that.

Whatever. She's going to help him. For the first time in a very long time, longer than he can literally remember, someone is going to help him.

[andhiswife]

"All right." Now they're getting somewhere. Greta's not sure how much of a difference haunting his own building will make as opposed to haunting hers, but maybe Bee has a better understanding of the situation, or knows someone else who can help. "She says Tim knows you're here, and that he'll be waiting there for you, too." 'Tim,' that sounds vaguely familiar. Does she know any Tims? Well, she'll be seeing him soon enough. Maybe he can make Jay a little more solid. A look at her map application confirms where she's going, and she nods once before setting the phone down.

"If you like, I could walk you there." She gives the dough one last flip, stirring up more flour, then glances Jay's way as she digs out a bowl she can put it in. It'll be fine in the fridge while she's out, and the rest of the mess can wait until she gets back. It'll be a beast to clean, but at least it's all dry. "It's probably too windy out for this flour thing to work, but if you touched me, I could keep track of you that way. Does that sound all right?"

[deadeyedchild]

Well, Tim will be in for a fucking treat. Jay's sure he's looking forward to it. And probably already berating the hell out of himself for not-quite-succeeding. He can't say he's thrilled about how he's ended up, but it's so, so much better than being stuck with the cats, or in that web.

He nods again. He hopes he'll be able to communicate soon because he needs to thank her somehow. For now all he can do is ride on people's kindness silently.

He gets back up slowly, and taps her gently for good measure. Just to signal he's ready, he supposes.

[andhiswife]

Greta smiles, faint but genuine. At least she can do this much for the poor boy. "Let me just..." She scoops some of the flour into her handkerchief and ties it shut. It won't work in open spaces, but it might if they ducked somewhere more sheltered. There's a chance Jay might need to communicate something more complicated than 'I'm still here,' and even if not, she'd rather have the flour and not need it than need it and not have it.

"Okay," she says, absently patting her pockets to make sure she has everything. "Off we go."

[deadeyedchild]

It's a difficult journey, but having Greta there makes all the difference. Their first big challenge comes right out of the proverbial gate, getting Jay out of the damn building. Ever considerate, Greta asks if the elevator will work for him, and they are able to devise a similar yes/no metric that the guitar man came up with. But from there it's an absurd struggle to express themselves to each other - Greta can only guess at what Jay's possible needs are, and he can only signal yes or no. After far too much complicated back and forth, during which at least one neighbor sees Greta talking to herself at the elevator bank, Jay manages to convince her she should just get in the elevator and he'll meet her in the lobby.

It's a long, arduous way down the stairs, but he eventually reaches her and is able to tap her, to her surprise and considerable relief.

The journey across the park is slightly easier but it takes a long time, and there's quite a bit of Greta pausing and looking lost while she waits for confirmation from Jay that he's still there, which causes a couple people to ask her if she knows where she is (unusually nice for this city - he suspects they might be rifties thinking she's new, especially based on her clothes); it's also increasingly difficult not to move through people en masse as he tries to keep up with her. She's moving relatively slowly but he really doesn't want to just pass through tourists in a line, so he winds up making overlarge semicircles around the path, allowing himself to float toward her and then away, and then back, over and over again. It's unbearably tedious, and he used to do video editing full time.

Finally, after what seems like for goddamn ever, they reach his building. It's tempting to just float on up and look for Tim but he knows he should wait with Greta, plus he wants to meet this Bee person.

Greta texts Bee to be let in, and after a moment the door buzzes open and he follows her through, unnecessarily. Politely. With invitation. Like... a vampire.

[andhiswife]

Well, that was certainly an adventure. Things improved drastically when they reached the Park and she could slow her pace without worrying about holding people up, but the initial leg of the journey was something of a trial. She's going to have a hard time looking that one particular neighbor in the eye. Well, maybe she can explain the situation to her, later. This might be the only city where 'the Rift turned my friend into a ghost' is as believable as the idea of a madwoman talking to herself for no obvious reason.

"Bee's up on the 18th floor," she says, speaking a bit more freely now that they're indoors. "I'll take the elevator and wait for you before I knock." Hopefully she won't have quite so long a wait as before; Jay seemed to have some difficulty navigating the stairs in her building.

Once she's off the elevator, she lingers near the stairwell. If she has to hover somewhere, she'd rather not do it right outside Bee's door. She starts when Jay taps her shoulder, as much because he was faster than expected as because of the cold, then heads down the hall, absently smoothing her palms over her skirt. She's rather curious to meet this Bee person; she seems friendly, just going by her texts, and it was clever of her to message the entire network to arrange this.

She checks her pocket for the little flour bundle one last time, then gently raps on Bee's door.

[apidae]

Bee hurriedly finishes neatening the last couple stacks of books and skips to the door to open it.

"Hi!" she says brightly. It's always a bit of a gamble meeting someone for the first time, hoping their patterns won't knock her off balance the way Peter's or Tim's had - to say nothing of the Doctor or Aziraphale - but Greta's patterns are rather straightforward and pleasantly musical. What mostly followed a calm and predictable path became very messy indeed right before the break which signifies the Rift scooping her up - and after that, there's a good deal of sadness and regret, which is to be expected. There's also a bright point of happiness which seems to be an intersection with another person whose patterns are not familiar to her, and she doesn't mean to, but it's not difficult to piece this together, once she recalls an odd text she received some weeks ago.

"Greta," she says without skipping a conversational beat, reaching out a hand, and she grins a little, unable to help it. "Right. Greta. I remember now."

An incautious thing to say, but she's a little giddy. She's happy to know Jay is back, for Tim's sake.

She pauses now to try and sift out Jay's patterns. There is something there, certainly, but it's odd and faint, difficult to pry out. That's a little disappointing, but at least there's confirmation he's there. What she can see is very like Tim's, so maybe it's a good thing she can't make it out. Goodness knows no one needs to see her fall to pieces.

"Hello, Jay," she says softly. "Tim will be along in a moment. Would you both like to come in?" She steps back to admit them.

[andhiswife]

Greta perks up at the cheery greeting. Cheery person, really; Bee seems no less than delighted to see them (well, the one of them who's easily visible). It's a nice welcome to receive - especially after the journey they've had - and she clasps Bee's hand warmly and smiles down at her. "And you're Bee. It's nice to meet you properly."

Her smile takes a turn for the bewildered when Bee says she remembers her. "Er... have we met already?" she asks, a little concerned that they did, and she forgot. It doesn't seem too likely; Greta has a good enough memory for faces, and Bee strikes her as a bright spark. Then the pieces fall into place, and she flaps a hand dismissively. "Oh. You got the texts, I suppose." The thought still leaves her with a faint twinge of guilt (poor Iman), and now it's joined by a more recently acquired stab of concern. There are certain individuals she'd rather didn't make that connection immediately upon hearing her name.

But Bee isn't one of them. "Thank you," Greta says as she steps into Bee's apartment, quietly approving of how neat and tidy she keeps it. Her gaze is drawn to the ward on her window, which has been beautifully worked into the glass. How lovely!

She turns back towards Bee, and the general area where she presumes Jay must be drifting. "It's a bit hard for Jay to talk," she explains, not knowing how much the Balladeer has filled Bee in. "He can't seem to move anything - at least not so far - but it's noticeable when he touches you, so it's not too hard to work out signs for 'yes' and 'no.' There is a trick to seeing him," she adds, "but I'm afraid it's a bit messy, so it might be better left until Tim arrives."

[deadeyedchild]

Bee is that tiny girl from the weirdo Tim-in-rollerblades dream, as it turns out. Still doesn't explain how both she and Guitar Hero just knew shit about him. He sure wishes he could follow up on that, or anything.

He floats in, watching Bee and Greta converse, trying not to feel creepy. They know he's here. It's fine.

"Now I'm intrigued," says Bee good-naturedly. "I'm so glad you were able to help him. Tim's been really worried, and very hard on himself. But as I understand it he's the reason Jay got out of the dreaming. Is that right Jay?" She holds out a hand, vaguely in his direction. "Once for yes and twice for no."

Worried, huh. Jay's glad they can't hear him chuckle bitterly to himself. He drifts over to Bee and taps her hand once.

"Oh," she says quietly, pulling back and rubbing at her fingers. "That is odd."

There's a light knock at the door before she can allege anything else about Tim's feelings on this situation, and she scampers across the room. This has got to be the happiest person he's ever seen. What the hell is Tim doing knowing someone like her?

Then again, the same question could pretty well be asked about him and Greta.

She opens the door to reveal Tim, looking harried as usual. "Come in," she says cheerfully. "This is Greta, Greta, this is Tim. Jay's here too but he can't talk to us."

[postictal]

This is turning into kind of a mess. Messes are dealable, usually, unless they're the kind where a sort-of not-friend dies and then turns into a ghost, and Tim might have hired some kind of alien to track down said not-friend, and now - yeah. This is going great.

How'd they even find him, if he really is a ghost? Does he even wanna know?

"Uh," says Tim, fist still hovering mid-air in preparation to knock again. He only sees two people, and neither of them look dead, or like ghosts, or like Jay.

"Wh - uh, Greta?" He performs a double-take as the other woman's name and appearance fully registers. "Do, uh, don't I know you?"

Oh, right. That was the dream where they couldn't stop knocking shit over, like a pair of preternaturally clumsy, petulant cats. Great.

[andhiswife]

"Oh!" Oh, she knows him. "Yes, I--I remember." That dream had been rather a mess, and Tim had been worrisomely ill for at least part of it, but he seems to be doing well enough, now. And she takes it nothing in Bee's apartment is going to fall apart the moment one of them touches it. "It's good to see you again," she says, rather than touch on the ridiculous circumstances of their first meeting. This can be something of a fresh start.

Though it doesn't really help that there's still a bizarre problem that needs solving, and with none of them necessarily equipped to handle it.

Well, at least she can offer something. "I was telling Bee--I sort of stumbled upon a way to see Jay, at least a little. I could show you." She digs out her flour bundle, which is already leaking just a little. The cloth she used to wrap it isn't that finely woven, and it must have endured a fair amount of jostling in her pocket. "Jay, if you wouldn't mind standing just here," she gestures to her own right side, "and giving me a tap when you're there...?"

A beat or two, and then a familiar freezing sensation drifts through her shoulder. It's not as sharp a sensation as it was to begin with, probably because she's used to it, but she makes a mental note to check later and make sure all these icy touches haven't done her any actual damage. "Right," she murmurs, lifting the improvised bag over where Jay's head should be and giving it a few gentle bats with her hand.

A little flour showers down, drifting to the floor by way of Jay's outline, his head and shoulders temporarily but unmistakably visible. "He surprised me while I was baking," Greta confides with a grin. "Scared me half to death, though I'm sure he didn't mean to."

[deadeyedchild]

Oh good, everyone knows everyone, sort of. He watches Tim and Greta somewhat nervously. This is weird, reuniting with Tim in front of these cheerful people. It would be weird even without that, but... he has no idea how this is supposed to go, what they're going to do. How Tim is going to handle this once there aren't people to play normal for.

When Greta calls him over, he obeys and waits for the embarrassing and yet helpful handful of flour to the face. He tries to keep his eyes open, to watch for Tim's reaction.

"Oh my gosh!" squeaks Bee, clapping her hands over her mouth. "That's so clever, Greta!"

Yeah, it is. Good luck getting Tim to try it, Jay thinks wryly.

[postictal]

Oh. Okay then. Everyone seems really fucking pleased about this whole development, but it's not until the puff of flour collects along the ridges of the skinny dumbass's outline that Tim can accept any of the words being thrown at him.

"Jay?" he says cautiously, experimentally, stretching a hand into the fading dust of flour. His fingertips brush something absolutely glacial, a chill shuddering up the joints of his knuckles, and he jerks back far too sharply.

"Wh - uh," he gulps inarticulately. His eyes dart nervously between Bee and Greta and the faint outline that's presumably Jay, unsure of whether he should be as thrilled as they seem to be. He raises a hand inanely and waves. "Uh. Hi. I guess."

So much for that warm fucking welcome.

[andhiswife]

Greta flaps a hand in good-natured dismissal. It was a complete accident, honestly; no cleverness required on her part. Tim's reaction is a bit more muted, and she sobers. This can't be easy for him. It wasn't easy for her, and she only knows Jay a little. Tim must be quite close with him.

"It's... not ideal," she admits, referring to both the flour trick - it's mostly settled onto Bee's otherwise clean floor - and Jay's general state. "But he's out of the Dreaming, at least."